Looking After Fundraisers

Fundraising is a most rewarding job, filled with fantastic highs and a real sense of achieving change for the better. It is also a lonely job, filled with anxiety, where failure means feeling like you've let down the whole charity and the people who use those resources. From researching into fundraisers as individuals they seem to be very badly managed and are often out there on their own. Apart from regular contact with other fundraisers, fundraisers need special management that is geared to keep the spirits up and the enjoyment of the job there on a continual (well! as continual, as possible!) basis. This means that board members, senior members of staff need to ensure that fundraisers are thanked not only when they have successes, but also for trying when things don't go so well.

Fundraising is such an intangible art, in the sense that it is almost impossible to say what will be raised from a fundraising event, because fundraising is due to people, their own experiences, and their own motivations. Therefore managing fundraisers, be they external volunteers who want to fundraise, or internal colleagues, they need to be managed gently.

The culture surrounding fundraisers should be encouraging and supportive. Those fundraisers that are allowed to take calculated risks are the ones, which undoubtedly will make mistakes, but they will also be the ones who have the potential to understand their mistakes and turn a mistake into successful events. Fear of failure simply creates no imagination and no new opportunities. Fundraising takes time and fundraisers take nurturing. This means they need direction, training, and support from senior members, trustees and organisations.

As a team of fundraisers it is important to take the time during the year to analyse and exchange the past events, what worked, what didn't work, why, what could have been done to change that situation (training, support etc). If you can take time outside of the office where there are no distractions, and couple this experience with having some sort of fun this will help pinpoint problems, and hopefully plan better for the future.

Remember companies spend millions on their sales teams to ensure they are motivated through social events and training. How much is spent on fundraisers. This does not mean that there should be an extravagant budget but there should be a recognition that something is being done to help fundraisers.

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